Shock and Awe: Commerce, Economy, Travel about to come to a standstill, one way or the other

SARS puts an end to business as usual in Asia Printer Friendly Format

IDG News Service 4/2/03

Sumner Lemon, IDG News Service, Taipei Bureau It's not business as usual in some parts of Asia anymore.

The outbreak of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), a potentially deadly disease that is caused by a previously unknown and highly infectious virus, has disrupted the operations of companies in Hong Kong, Singapore and China. And analysts warned that the spread of the disease, if unchecked, could limit the supply of some key electronic components, affecting the availability and pricing of some hardware systems.

SARS first appeared in China's southern Guangdong province, which is home to much of the country's low-cost electronics and IT hardware manufacturing industry, before spreading to other parts of the country as well as to Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam. Other Asian countries have also reported SARS cases, albeit in far lower numbers, including Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, and the disease has spread as far as North America, Europe and Australia.

South Korea and Japan, which rank with Taiwan, Singapore and China as important hardware manufacturing centers, have so far not reported any cases of SARS.

'At a minimum, the SARS epidemic will cause schedule slippages and disrupt the aggressive growth plans that global electronics companies have for the affected geographies,' Aberdeen Group Inc. analysts Russ Craig and Peter Kastner wrote in a report. 'Worst case, it could result in major supply chain disruptions and another downdraft for an already challenged industry.'

The United Nation's World Heath Organization (WHO) put the total number of worldwide SARS cases at 1,804, with 62 deaths, on April 1. Over the previous day, the number of cases had climbed by 182, with four deaths, it said. Hong Kong has shown the greatest increase in SARS cases, with 155 new cases reported, and three deaths, between March 31 and April 1. The fourth death reported during the same period occurred in Singapore, WHO said.

China has the largest reported number of SARS cases with 806 people diagnosed with the disease and 34 deaths, WHO said. In Hong Kong, which is an important transportation hub for air travel between China and Taiwan, there have been 685 cases of SARS and 16 deaths, it said.

At Intel Corp.'s Hong Kong office, an employee last weekend began to show symptoms that were considered to be consistent with the SARS virus, said company spokeswoman Josie Taylor. As a precautionary measure, Intel has asked all of its employees that work on the same

AVOID HONGKONG AND GUANGDONG, TRAVELLERS TOLD GRIM NEWS ABOUT SARS THREATENS ASIAN ECONOMIES

WHO gets tough on China By Mary Kwang

THE World Health Organisation (WHO) yesterday made an extraordinary call on travellers to stay away from Hongkong and neighbouring Guangdong province, two places at the heart of the Sars outbreak that has hit 22 countries.

It issued the advice because 'we don't completely understand the means of transmission in Hongkong', said the head of its communicable diseases unit, Dr David Heymann, in Geneva.

Security officers guard the entrance of a quarantine centre in

Mysterious Illness Spreads Havoc on Businesses By KEITH BRADSHER

ONG KONG, April 2 — As the highly contagious respiratory disease that began in China continues to spread, its impact on business activity is stretching from Hong Kong around the globe, disrupting complex supply chains and forcing industries from airlines to banking to adjust their operations.

UBS, the Swiss bank, is ordering employees returning to its European offices from trips to Asia to stay home for 10 days before reporting to work. Intel is canceling two major conferences in Asia for suppliers, customers and computer programmers. And KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has warned that the disease, known as severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, is hurting international air travel more than the war in Iraq.

Further disruption seemed probable after the World Health Organization yesterday urged travelers to avoid Hong Kong and Guangdong Province in China, the first time the W.H.O. has ever issued a global warning against travel to an area because of an infectious disease.

The warning from the W.H.O. came as the Centers for Disease Control said there were 85 suspected cases in 27 states, and China admitted yesterday that it had 1,190 suspected cases, not 806, and 46 deaths instead of the 34 it had previously acknowledged.

Health officials still do not know if SARS will spread further throughout the world or burn out on its own. At the moment, the number of cases is relatively small compared with some other respiratory diseases.

During an average year in the United States, influenza kills about 36,000 people, most of them elderly or with underlying diseases. As far as health officials can calculate at the moment, the death rate from SARS is about 3 percent, about half that of West Nile fever.

But because so little is known about the highly contagious disease and because, aside from standard nursing care and help in breathing, there is no treatment or vaccine, health officials here and around the world remain deeply concerned.

Fears about SARS are affecting so many businesses that economists at many of the big investment banks reduced their estimates today for economic growth in East Asia, especially in Hong Kong and Singapore. Goldman Sachs, for example, estimated that the disease would reduce economic output in the current quarter by seven-tenths of a percentage point in Hong Kong, half a percentage point in Singapore, three-tenths of a point in Taiwan, and two-tenths of a point in Thailand.

The immediate impact is most severe in the travel and tourism industries. In a survey released Tuesday by the Business Travel Coalition, an advocacy group for business travelers, 27 percent of the respondents were banning travel to Asia and 8 percent were considering a ban.

Kevin P. Mitchell, president of the advocacy group, estimated that the survey's participants spend an average of $734,000 a day, or $268 million a year, on air travel to Asia.

Entertainment in Asia is also being affected. The Rolling Stones, Moby and Carlos Santana have canceled or postponed concerts.

Businesses across East Asia, especially here in Hong Kong at the epicenter of the SARS outbreak, are being forced to develop a new approach to workplace health.

J. P. Morgan Chase has split some important departments into two shifts that take turns working a week in the office and then a week at home, in the hope that if one shift becomes contaminated with the virus, the other shift can take over.

The hardest-hit company here appears to be HSBC, a bank so dominant in Hong Kong that it used to be said that its branches were more common than rice shops.

Five HSBC employees — one each in treasury, trade finance and private banking and two in branches — have fallen ill here with SARS. On the advice of its doctors, HSBC is sending home only those workers who had close contact with workers who became ill, and it is not clearing out an entire floor each time.

As a precaution, however, HSBC sent 50 fixed-income bond traders home last Thursday with instructions that all those who stay healthy for seven days — the disease's usual incubation period — should then report to a backup site at the other end of the harbor from the bank's headquarters.

Fears about the disease are affecting many companies in other parts of the world as well.

Intel, the computer chip maker, has decided to cancel two conferences it planned to hold this month in Taipei and Beijing for about 1,000 suppliers, customers and computer programmers, according to Chuck Malloy, a spokesman.

In Switzerland, the government barred visitors from China, Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong from working at exhibitions at the 86-year- old World Watch and Jewelry Show in Basel and Zurich.

Of 650 stands registered for the Zurich fair, 400 were closed because the employees of the stands, most of whom were already in Switzerland, were not allowed to work.

In Canada, where more than 100 people have been infected with SARS, Chinese restaurants and shopping areas in Toronto were shunned today while face masks and thermometers were big sellers. For a few businesses, however, the SARS outbreak is proving to be a boon.

'We've seen a reasonable increase in sales,' said John Mozas, general manager of Grocery Gateway Inc., which operates an online supermarket. But Grocery Gateway, too, has made changes to accommodate customers' concerns. For the time being, all its delivery people are required to wear gloves and to leave orders at customers' front doors.

The biggest question now is how much the SARS outbreak will affect China. Taiwan in particular has been strongly discouraging its citizens from visiting the mainland after a spate of SARS illnesses among recent arrivals from there.

Taiwanese companies working with mainland factories produce much of the world's desktop, laptop and notepad computers and dominate the market for wireless local access network equipment, for example. But because few factories on the mainland have many engineers of their own, Taiwanese and other companies fly in engineers to oversee the design of products as well as the construction and equipping of new factories.

Manufacturers have tried to accomplish the same tasks through videoconferencing and the Internet, but they have mostly been unsuccessful. If the current difficulties cause a delay in tight schedules for the introduction of new computer models and the construction of factories, multinational companies may seek additional sources of supply.

'One of the imponderables here is how this will affect perceptions of China,' said Russell Craig, the research director for semiconductors at the Aberdeen Group, a market research firm in Boston. 'Until this happened, it was the absolute hot spot in terms of the electronics

Virus Is Yet Another Blow to Battered Airlines By EDWARD WONG

he rapid spread of a deadly respiratory disease that originated in southern China is cutting into an already battered airline industry, as carriers around the world cancel empty flights, lay off workers, screen passengers for symptoms and deal with crews that refuse to fly to some Asian cities.

Airlines say it is too early to measure the drop in passenger bookings or gauge exactly how this will affect financial performance. But traffic has declined to Asia, as travelers reschedule vacations and companies bar workers from flying to Asian cities. The World Health Organization has recommended that travelers cancel any nonessential trips to Hong Kong and the adjoining Chinese province of Guangdong.

The dropoff in an already depressed travel market is causing carriers to trim their schedules more and eliminate ticket restrictions to give passengers flexibility.

Singapore Airlines, for example, said it was cutting 60 flights a week out of Singapore, on top of 65 cuts announced the day after the United States attacked Iraq. The latest cutbacks include the elimination of two daily flights each to New York and Los Angeles. Since March 20, the airline has announced cuts that amount to nearly 14 percent of its seating capacity.

Singapore serves many of the cities where cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, have been identified. So far, doctors have pinpointed more than 2,200 cases around the world and have said that more than 75 people have died from the disease.

'At this point, SARS is factoring into the softening demand,' said a Singapore Airlines spokesman.

Leo van Wijk, the chief executive of KLM, the Dutch carrier, said in Amsterdam yesterday that because the disease 'really scares people and makes people afraid to fly,' it seemed to be having a bigger impact on KLM traffic than the war. He added that his airline was cutting 9 percent of its work force to stanch losses from the war and the illness.

At Continental Airlines, the fifth-largest domestic carrier, 30 percent of people booked on a five-day-a-week flight from Newark to Hong Kong have not shown up in the last couple of days, said Gordon M. Bethune, the chief executive. The usual no-show rate is less than 10 percent. Mr. Bethune said that if fears of the disease appear protracted, Continental might suspend that flight until traffic levels return.

'We're all of us learning every day about this stuff,' he said. 'There's definitely fear and anxiety in the system.'

Continental also flies to Toyko from Newark and Houston, as well as to Guam from Hong Kong. Mr. Bethune said he was unsure how traffic on those flights had been affected by fear of the disease.

Air travel is particularly vulnerable to fears of the respiratory disease because it is being transmitted worldwide by passengers flying from Asia. Doctors say that accounts for the six people who have died from it in Canada, as well as the 85 cases reported in the United States. On Tuesday, fears of air travel were heightened when news reports showed an American Airlines jet from Tokyo being quarantined in San Jose, Calif., after several passengers said they felt ill. Doctors later said the passengers did not show symptoms of SARS.

The two domestic carriers with the most exposure in Asia are United Airlines and Northwest Airlines. Each has 20 percent or more of its seating capacity on Asian routes. Representatives of those airlines said yesterday that they had not canceled any flights because of the disease and declined to provide statistics on passenger traffic.

'We have no idea of what the financial impact might be,' said Joe Hopkins, a spokesman for United. 'It's too early to know.'

Mr. Hopkins said bookings on United's international flights had fallen about 40 percent since the war began.

Airlines are asking travelers at ticket counters and boarding areas in some airports — in particular Hong Kong, Singapore and Toronto — whether they have symptoms of SARS, have traveled to infected countries recently or have come into recent contact with others who have the illness. If a passenger's response indicates the possibility of carrying the disease, airlines are requesting a medical certificate showing the passenger does not have SARS.

Some carriers are taking other precautions. Continental workers in the Hong Kong and Tokyo airports are watching passengers for signs of the illness, such as a dry cough.

Cathay Pacific Airways, based in Hong Kong, has put surgical masks on board its flights from Hong Kong and said on Monday that it was cutting eight flights a day between Hong Kong and several Asian cities.

Flight crews on some international airlines have refused to work on planes going to infected cities. In the United States, the Association of Flight Attendants, the largest union representing those jobs, plans to ask the federal government this week to mandate that carriers provide crew members with surgical masks and rubber gloves.

SARS cases in Florida rise to 5, health officials say Orlando Sentinel, FL - 40 minutes ago ... and hospitals to notify us.'. He said the state is reviewing numerous possible cases from doctors and individuals who contacted the department. So far, SARS has ...

Depression looms as panic spreads over mystery virus

It's plunged China into a state of doom and gloom and now Sars is said to be 'another nail in the cofffin' for the world economy. Xiao Hong in Beijing reports

MARY Wong didn't have much to smile about last week. The Hong Kong student of politics was already feeling depressed about the war in Iraq when the spectre of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) again raised its head, bringing with it a climate of fear and uncertainty.

With it came the cancellation of a string of major sporting and entertainment events

'In Thailand, the prime minister hopes SARS won't keep people away from a spring festival this week. He's offering $48,000 for anybody who can prove a relative got a fatal case of it there.' Try to spend it in the grave, FOOLS.

'As of Monday, there were 148 suspected cases of SARS in the United States and more than 2,600 worldwide.'

http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/sandt/ptr/Guangxi- Power-prt.htm

Guangxi's Longtan Dam:

Satisfying Guangdong's Thirst for Power

An August 2002 report from the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou.

Energy consumption in South China is growing dramatically, and electricity supply – despite massive government investment – does not look as if it will be able to keep up. The government's inability to provide sufficient energy may in fact begin to cripple economic growth in this region in the near future.

In this context, developing hydroelectric potential in Guangxi and its neighboring provinces in order to transmit electricity to rapidly growing Guangdong Province ('Sending Western Energy to the East' is considered vital. The construction of the massive Longtan Dam on the Hongshui River in Guangxi is one of China's largest infrastructure projects under the current Five-Year Plan. One key concern is the treatment of displaced persons.

Guangxi 'Sending Power' to Surging Guangdong

The central government is allotting funds and granting preferential policies to help China's generally weaker western areas develop. Because of their bountiful hydropower resources, Guangxi, Guizhou and Yunnan Provinces have been designated to supply electricity to Guangdong Province, one of China's economic powerhouses. The 'Sending Western Energy to the East' Project is one of four banner infrastructure projects underway in China's Tenth Five-Year Plan (2001-2005). The others are projects to transfer water from the Yangtze River to North China, the west-to-east natural gas pipeline, and the new railroad line into Tibet.)

Guangdong Province has a nearly insatiable appetite for electricity. Although most agree that China's statistics, especially provincial data, are often inflated and best viewed in comparative rather than absolute terms, Guangdong's numbers have nonetheless been very impressive. Despite last year's global downturn, the province reported 9.5% growth in 2001 and became the first and only province on the mainland to exceed one trillion RMB ($121 billion) in GDP – 11% of the national total. Per capita GDP in Guangzhou Municipality, the provincial capital with a population of eight million, reached $4,568 in 2001 after increasing 12.7%. This level of income matches Shanghai Municipality and exceeds Beijing by a considerable margin.

Drought in Shandong

Shandong Province, a coastal province along the Yellow Sea in Northern China, is suffering a severe drought this year, causing Chinese authorities to introduce emergency measures such as unplanned water releases from upstream reservoirs on the Yellow River, as well as restrictions on upstream irrigation in Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. Some 80% of Shandong's farmland has been affected, with one-third expected to produce no crops at all this year. Fully half of Shandong's reservoirs have dried up, and cattle are grazing in former river channels. Total economic losses are estimated at around $1.2 billion. (China Daily, September 21; Beijing Morning Post, September 25)

After four consecutive years of drought, residents of Shandong are facing a severe water shortage. About 60 cities face water shortages, and about 5 million people and 1 million cattle are experiencing temporary difficulty in obtaining drinking water. More than 800,000 people (out of a population of 90 million) have to buy drinking water or rely on water delivered by the government, while more than 500 industrial enterprises have had their water supply cut as part of rationing measures, leading to partial or total suspension of production. Lack of water in one section of the Grand Canal linking Beijing and the Yangtze River stalled delivery of over 1 million tons of coal for 50 days.

During this year's July-August 'rainy season,' average precipitation was only 132 mm, down 62% from the historic average, and the lowest level since record-keeping began in 1916.

A related, emerging problem is falling groundwater levels. This can lead to land subsidence and saltwater intrusion into the water table. Drought also aggravates pollution (because pollutants are less diluted in rivers) and soil salinization. Nearly 600,000 wells have dried up.

The drought has also affected Nanyang, Zhaoyang, Dushan and Weishan Lakes (the 'South Four Lakes' in southwestern Shandong, which form the largest freshwater lake group in north China. Their water storage has dropped to a mere 37 million cubic meters, less than 1% of their maximum storage capacity of 5.4 billion cubic meters. Most of the surface area has dried up, and fish and bird life has been decimated.

Pingyin County near Jinan is the most seriously affected area in Shandong. Fifty-one of 56 reservoirs have dried up, and the remaining 5 have reached their 'dead storage' capacity, the level at which water will not reach sluice gates in the dam. The groundwater level in Pingyin Country fell 30 meters this year, sometimes at an incredible 20 centimeters a day.

Dongping Lake has also fallen to its dead storage level. Its normal storage level of 700 million cubic meters is now less than 200 million cubic meters. The Dongping Lake Management Office has stopped irrigation diversions in order to guarantee local people's drinking water supply. Shilan Reservoir has similarly dried up and has become a pasture. The surrounding farmland is so dry that most summer crops died, and the local government is encouraging farmers to develop animal husbandry as an alternative to farming.

There is now little possibility of heavy rain until next summer. The total amount of water stored throughout Shandong at this point is only 3.6 billion cubic meters, but nearly 2 billion cubic meters of water is urgently needed for drought relief, and another 2.7 billion cubic meters is needed for autumn crops. (Beijing Evening News, September 23; Beijing Youth Daily, September 25, October 21)

.... http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/sandt/ptr/ estnews111502-prt.htm

Floods in the South

Even as northern parts of China suffer from drought, rare dry-season floods have hit Guangdong and Hunan Provinces in South China. A sustained torrential rain caused serious floods to sweep through Shaoguan City in northern Guangdong between October 28 and October 30. Measured rainfall in some areas reached 230 mm, and the Xiangjiang River in Hunan Province experienced its largest dry season flood since 1949 on October 30 following days of rainfall.

After water levels on the upper and middle reaches of the Xiangjiang River exceeded warning levels, some 48 reservoirs all carried out emergency discharges. (Beijing Youth Daily, November 1)

APRIL 11, 2003

CHINA JOURNAL By Mark L. Clifford

How SARS Is Strangling Hong Kong This usually vibrant city that's so dependent on its service sector and hundreds of thousands of small businesses is turning into a ghost town

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The toll of the killer SARS pneumonia on Hong Kong continues to mount. For most of the past week, about 40 new cases a day have cropped up, double the rate of a week earlier. But the fear gripping Hong Kong as a result of SARS may be far more damaging than the disease itself.

For a city that thrives on trade, being quarantined from the rest of the world feels like being strangled. About one-third of the more than 500 flights that usually take off or land in Hong Kong on a typical day are being canceled. Those that are still running are largely empty. For a time, outbound flights were filled with expatriate families fleeing a city whose schools are shuttered. But even that traffic has dried up. Those who wanted to go have mostly left.

The impact of the virus hit me with a thud when I returned to Hong Kong from Beijing on Apr. 4. It was a Friday evening, normally a peak period for flight arrivals. But not a single person was waiting in the cavernous south wing of the immigration hall, manned by only a handful of forlorn immigration officers.

STAYING IN. Travel agents report that outbound bookings for the Easter holiday period are down an incredible 80%. But even those of us who might still dare to get on a plane find that many countries don't want us. Thailand is checking incoming arrivals. If one person on a plane is infected by SARS, everyone on the plane is subject to quarantine, according to travel agents here. Malaysia has suspended automatic visas. Singapore has told foreign workers visiting SARS-infected areas like Hong Kong that they face quarantine on their return.

Hong Kong's streets are eerily empty. The jostling, noisy crowds that characterize this fast-paced city have retreated in fear. For a city that depends on the service sector to generate 86% of its gross domestic product and is powered with hundreds of thousands of small businesses, this disease could be a real economic killer.

After all, restaurants and other shops that depend on cash flow to pay the rent aren't going to be able to keep going indefinitely. My son and I went to a restaurant for dinner on Apr. 10. It had seating for more than 50 people. We were the only diners.

PSYCH-OUT. I was here during the Asian currency crisis of 1997-98. People called it the Asia flu, but what's happening now is so different. During the currency crisis, events unfolded in slow motion. Sure, there were moments of panic. But they were limited to the financial markets.

This fear is in the streets. And never, at least in Hong Kong, has economic activity just stopped this quickly. Some commentators are saying it's the worst crisis since 1967, when a wave of bombings and deadly riots inspired by Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution swept the city.

The damage done by the SARS pneumonia is now above all psychological. Most infected people are health-care workers or others who have been in contact with another sick person. The disease is not increasing exponentially, like a typical influenza outbreak. And though the mortality rate is uncomfortably high for this sort of disease, it's mostly older people and those with a history of health problems who are dying.

CUNNING AND DANGEROUS. It would be wrong to say, as Franklin D. Roosevelt declared during the Great Depression, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. SARS really kills. Researchers still don't fully understand how it spreads, nor do they know how to cure it. They don't even know how long the incubation period is. No test can detect its presence. It isn't the plague, or even a killer pandemic of the sort that swept the world in 1918. But it is a cunning and dangerous microbe.

I'm afraid that Hong Kong, China, and perhaps much of the rest of the world are going to have to learn to live as best as possible can with this disease. How everyone adapts will go a long way toward determining what sort of future Hong Kong has as an economic hub.

However, here at the nexus of a mysterious disease outbreak and an urban jewel of world commerce in the 21st century, a frightening scene unfolds: As we Hong Kong residents try to take preventive measures against the disease, we're watching the slow strangulation of our

Countries tighten measures to fend off SARS

REUTERS[ FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2003 10:06:19 AM ] WASHINGTON: Governments around the world tightened their defenses against a frightening new respiratory disease on Thursday, with Singapore deploying surveillance cameras and the United States broadening its definition of who is at risk.

Hospital workers in Hong Kong said the epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome had pushed the territory's health care system to the brink of collapse.

But scientists said they had pinned down the virus that causes SARS and could finish work on an easy diagnostic test, and US legislators pushed for an extra $150 million to strengthen worldwide surveillance networks to defend against future outbreaks.

Worldwide, more than 110 people have died and nearly 3,000 have been infected.

A quarter of Hong Kong's 1,000 cases of SARS, marked by fever, cough and severe pneumonia, are health workers, including 12 diagnosed with the illness on Thursday.

'I am afraid that if more hospital staff get infected, the entire health care system would collapse,' Peter Wong, a spokesman for three major nurses unions, told a news conference. He said Hong Kong government hospitals were not providing staff with adequate protective gear.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organisation recommend health-care workers treating respiratory patients wear a mask and gloves to protect themselves.

More Hong Kong Deaths

The Hong Kong government said three more people died of SARS, bringing the toll to 30, and officials feared the illness could spread further through the city's crowded apartment towers.

WHO teams were in Beijing and in China's Guangdong province, the source of the infection, but WHO infectious disease chief Dr. David Heymann said they would like permission to look further. 'China is a worrisome area because don't know what is going on outside Beijing,' he said in an interview.

Singapore slapped a quarantine on arriving foreign workers and took drastic measures to enforce quarantine orders on hundreds of people suspected of exposure to SARS, including mounting 'Webcams' in homes and threatening to use electronic wrist bands.

'We are facing an unprecedented situation. We are dealing with a serious, unseen threat,' said Singapore's minister of manpower, Lee Boon Yang.

Indonesia said it banned 8,000 workers from travelling to SARS-hit countries and Russia advised its citizens against traveling to SARS-affected areas.

The United States widened its definition of people at risk of SARS, saying anyone who passed through an airport in an affected country should watch for symptoms of respiratory illness and contact a doctor immediately if they developed fever or cough.

'If you are a passenger traveling from an unaffected part of the world and you go through an airport in a country, say like Hong Kong, where the disease is being transmitted, you could come into contact with someone who is infected,' CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding told a news conference.

The CDC also said it would be more proactive in screening people who have been in contact with SARS patients. 'Rather than asking people to contact a clinician if they develop an illness, we are going to work with (state) health departments so that we contact the contacts and check in periodically,' Gerberding said.

Aggressive Containment

'I think this a very sensible way for being more aggressive about containment.'

The CDC believes its strict measures and broad definition of who is a suspected SARS patient has helped keep the disease from spreading in the United States. Gerberding said there were 166 suspected SARS cases in 30 states.

CDC and European researchers both said they had come closer to proving that a new virus from the coronavirus family causes SARS. They found the virus, which may have jumped from animals to humans, in most patients with SARS.

They proposed naming it Urbani SARS-associated coronavirus after Dr. Carlo Urbani, who treated the first identified SARS victims in Hanoi and who later himself died of SARS.

The CDC has developed three experimental tests for the virus and is working to get a licensed version that can be used widely, although Gerberding said it would be at least a week and probably longer.

Once a test is widely available doctors can more easily diagnose SARS ountries tighten measures to fend off SARS

REUTERS[ FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2003 10:06:19 AM ] WASHINGTON: Governments around the world tightened their defenses against a frightening new respiratory disease on Thursday, with Singapore deploying surveillance cameras and the United States broadening its definition of who is at risk.

Hospital workers in Hong Kong said the epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome had pushed the territory's health care system to the brink of collapse.

But scientists said they had pinned down the virus that causes SARS and could finish work on an easy diagnostic test, and US legislators pushed for an extra $150 million to strengthen worldwide surveillance networks to defend against future outbreaks.

Worldwide, more than 110 people have died and nearly 3,000 have been infected.

A quarter of Hong Kong's 1,000 cases of SARS, marked by fever, cough and severe pneumonia, are health workers, including 12 diagnosed with the illness on Thursday.

'I am afraid that if more hospital staff get infected, the entire health care system would collapse,' Peter Wong, a spokesman for three major nurses unions, told a news conference. He said Hong Kong government hospitals were not providing staff with adequate protective gear.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organisation recommend health-care workers treating respiratory patients wear a mask and gloves to protect themselves.

More Hong Kong Deaths

The Hong Kong government said three more people died of SARS, bringing the toll to 30, and officials feared the illness could spread further through the city's crowded apartment towers.

WHO teams were in Beijing and in China's Guangdong province, the source of the infection, but WHO infectious disease chief Dr. David Heymann said they would like permission to look further. 'China is a worrisome area because don't know what is going on outside Beijing,' he said in an interview.

Singapore slapped a quarantine on arriving foreign workers and took drastic measures to enforce quarantine orders on hundreds of people suspected of exposure to SARS, including mounting 'Webcams' in homes and threatening to use electronic wrist bands.

'We are facing an unprecedented situation. We are dealing with a serious, unseen threat,' said Singapore's minister of manpower, Lee Boon Yang.

Indonesia said it banned 8,000 workers from travelling to SARS-hit countries and Russia advised its citizens against traveling to SARS-affected areas.

The United States widened its definition of people at risk of SARS, saying anyone who passed through an airport in an affected country should watch for symptoms of respiratory illness and contact a doctor immediately if they developed fever or cough.

'If you are a passenger traveling from an unaffected part of the world and you go through an airport in a country, say like Hong Kong, where the disease is being transmitted, you could come into contact with someone who is infected,' CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding told a news conference.

The CDC also said it would be more proactive in screening people who have been in contact with SARS patients. 'Rather than asking people to contact a clinician if they develop an illness, we are going to work with (state) health departments so that we contact the contacts and check in periodically,' Gerberding said.

Aggressive Containment

'I think this a very sensible way for being more aggressive about containment.'

The CDC believes its strict measures and broad definition of who is a suspected SARS patient has helped keep the disease from spreading in the United States. Gerberding said there were 166 suspected SARS cases in 30 states.

CDC and European researchers both said they had come closer to proving that a new virus from the coronavirus family causes SARS. They found the virus, which may have jumped from animals to humans, in most patients with SARS.

They proposed naming it Urbani SARS-associated coronavirus after Dr. Carlo Urbani, who treated the first identified SARS victims in Hanoi and who later himself died of SARS.

The CDC has developed three experimental tests for the virus and is working to get a licensed version that can be used widely, although Gerberding said it would be at least a week and probably longer.

Once a test is widely available doctors can more easily diagnose SARS and can start to learn if people can carry the virus